


awake, alive

by EllsterSMASH



Series: little pieces of us [3]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Drabble, F/M, Mutual Pining, Rain, Romance, Sexual Tension, same scene different POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-18
Updated: 2017-09-18
Packaged: 2018-12-31 02:59:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12123063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllsterSMASH/pseuds/EllsterSMASH
Summary: A moment between their kiss in the Fade and the balcony scene.





	1. Athi

For what seems like the hundredth time since she first fell asleep, Athi wakes in a panic.

It’s dark, still. And hot.

Her stomach turns and her head is pounding. The air is so heavy that each labored breath feels a little bit like drowning. Even with the cool rocky cavern floor beneath her–she’s long since pushed aside the bedroll–she is warm. Everything is too warm, and she’s already peeled off every layer of clothing save her smalls and her tunic. Still, she can’t get comfortable.

Sweat beads on her skin, drips down the slopes of her sides, and pools in every dip and bend of her body. She must be lying in a puddle by now. Her hair is tied up, but all the tossing and turning has worked much of it loose, and the escaped strands stick to her face and the back of her neck. It has been weeks since she’s had a chance to properly wash, and the oil mixes with dirt from the road to leave her scalp and now her skin gritty.

Desperate for relief, she stands, huffing and whimpering like a petulant child. She blinks stupidly into the almost-blackness, rubs her eyes that won’t quite open all the way.

She isn’t sure where to go from here.

She wants to lay back down, wants to  _sleep_ , but she’s already tried that and it only brings misery.

She could ask Solas to do that cooling thing he does–but he isn’t where she left him. Must have gone outside to piss or something.

The others are restless as well. Cassandra is lying spread-eagle on her bedroll, her face locked in a grimace, while Varric’s usual deep snores have been replaced with shallower breaths. It’s obvious none of them will be well-rested in the morning.

She yawns as if to affirm the point.

Her steps are light as she skirts around the shifting shapes of them to climb the gentle slope that curves toward the cavern’s entrance. The pregnant clouds are dark and close, masking light from moon and stars alike.

The air rumbles with distant thunder.  _Rain!_  she thinks, almost giddy. She climbs down the rocky mouth, down into the cool grass, and feels a tiny drop of rain on the tip of her ear, instinctively raising a hand for more. Her supplication is rewarded with a drop between her fingers, another on her cheek.

She feels him long before he speaks–his magic makes her head swim, like falling. Or maybe that’s just him.

“ _Lethallan_.” His voice is sleepy and rasped at the ends. Like her, he’s shed most of his layers and left them behind in search of relief. She watches as he comes to stand beside her, bare-chested, and barefoot in the grass. Her cheeks burn a bit more than the rest of her. Skin is only supposed to be skin, but  _his_ skin?

His skin is something else entirely.

_–soft lips that capture hers like starving; his tongue insistent, pressing for entrance; the grip of her fingers in the smooth hollow at the back of his neck; the drag of eyelashes across the bridge of her nose–_

It’s impossible not to reach out, but he asked for time and she agreed and so she doesn’t.

“I’m waiting for the rain,” she says instead, and rests her eyes.

His little finger brushes the outer bone of her wrist, maybe on accident, then darts away, probably on purpose.

The drops are coming faster now, in tiny specks of cold that mix with the warm sweat on her skin. Soothing, but not enough. She wants more.

Solas looks down at her, blinks as rain splashes on his cheeks. “Athi, I–”

A rumble interrupts him. It’s closer now, almost overhead, shaking the air around them like a drumbeat. Then the clouds spill over.

The first few drops only add to the layer of sweat, but the rest splash on her face and her arms and her toes. She smiles, wide and bright, catching raindrops in her mouth and blinking against the onslaught. What clothes she has left soak through in seconds, and it’s good and cleansing and blissfully cool. She unties her hair and shakes it loose, lets the rain carve its own paths through the tangled strands, imagines the filth pouring from the ends back onto the ground where it belongs. She laughs, wrings it out and turns her face to the heavens–her favorite sky of them all, the most blessed of cloud covers–in silent gratitude.

Maybe she could sleep out here.

A hesitant touch just above her elbow, then those long fingers slide around her arm in a hold that’s really more of a suggestion. She turns and Solas is watching her, stealing the breath right from her lungs with a look like maybe she’s everything he wants.

She wants to kiss him–again–but she doesn’t get the chance. He pulls her in tight, tucks her under his chin, and she fits there. There, against his warm, wet skin, she fits like the space between his shoulders was carved out just for her. Fits like his arms were built to wrap around her, built like a home.

She rests her cheek against the sound of his heart.

It beats like a drum, and feels like thunder.


	2. Solas

Solas is not used to sleepless nights. It is warm, yes, and muggy. But the Fade’s obedience to his will has kept him comfortably resting in far worse. No, his unrest stems not from the unpleasant weather, but from _her_.

Weak, foolish man.

It has become difficult to sleep so near to her, so close on both sides of the Veil. Hard to fall asleep when he can hear the soft sounds of her breathing slow. Harder still to stay asleep, fighting the temptation to steal a glimpse of her mind.

Oh, he had been curious, before. Even entered her dreams and called it “research,” though he regretted his actions, now that she might be _—_

Regardless, he should not enter uninvited again. And so he had put space between them, hoping to find some rest.

And Wisdom.

They are standing by the memories of a vast lake that once filled an entire valley, likely forming the cave in which his companions still sleep. It is a peaceful place, for now.

“The last time we spoke, you called her ‘shadow,’” the spirit says in the People's tongue. It is good to hear it spoken well. “Now she is ‘woman’ and ‘friend.’”

“Yes, much has changed since then.”

“Indeed it has. I am pleased that you are learning to accept the truth.”

“Truth is truth, my friend.” Solas waves his hand dismissively. “That I could not see it before does not make it a miracle that I see it now.”

“Nonetheless, it makes me glad.”

“This does not change the fact that it would not be right, for me . . . for us.”

“What makes it wrong?”

“I can think of a thousand things,” he says, staring out at the lake’s placid surface.

“And can you think of a thousand that make it right?”

“I can think of one.”

Wisdom gives a soft and knowing smile. “But it is very compelling.”

He chuckles. “Yes.”

The sky, clear and sapphire, grumbles far above them, and the water ripples as though some unseen being has waded into the shallows. He can taste her magic on his tongue, a familiar blend of sharp citrus and copper and ashes.

Wisdom rests a near-weightless hand on his shoulder. “Go, my friend, and travel safely. We will meet again soon.”

He opens his eyes in the waking world and is plunged into darkness. Unlike the sky reflected in the Fade, this one is made up of dense, black clouds. It is barely drizzling, and lightning skitters across the horizon to the low and constant rumble of thunder.

 _She_ is there, a silhouette against the distant lights. Dressed in next to nothing, what little fabric she is wearing whipped and tugged by the wind. Standing out there in the grass with her head tipped back and a hand turned up. His eyes follow her form, from her capable fingers, past the curves of her waist and hips and down to her legs, lean and naked.

Her body is marred by scrapes and scars, covered in dust and gleaming with sweat. But oh, she is lovely.

It takes a great deal of willpower to tear his gaze from her and decide to care about the clouds.

_What makes it wrong?_

As usual, Wisdom’s words have only served to complicate matters. Not that the woman in front of him was ever uncomplicated. She has stumbled into the plans of powerful beings, survived that which should have killed her thrice over, and saved all of Thedas. And that was before she ever even woke in Haven. She is unexpected in every way.

Then, when she did wake, she had seemed so small. _Was_ small. And frightened, and quiet, and unremarkable. Until she wasn’t. Until her lips broke into that very first grin and he found his own widening in unconscious response. Until her eyes blazed with anger at his own thoughtless, hurtful words and she spit fire back in his face. Until he saw her fight. Until he asked her why she dangled from cliff faces and threw herself at enemies twice her size and she said, “To make my heart beat.” Until he followed her across rivers and mountains and watched her move like she had never done anything else.

Until she swept in like a summer storm, screaming to life with every bit of her.

_“Lethallan.”_

Athi turns at the sound of his voice, her eyes wide and wondering, bright against the navy backdrop of the sky. He walks to her side and she watches, her focus drifting down his form with a transparency that is both refreshing and amusing. With a quick, deep breath, she straightens and closes her eyes.

“I’m waiting for the rain.”

Of course she is. He smiles to himself and settles in to wait with her.

The space between them is small, and he feels the heat of her skin at his fingertips before he flinches away, flexing them back into submission.

 _It would not be right,_ his inner voice chides.

The truth is painful. Hard, ever-present, and sinking into his gut. Gnawing at his core, mingling with the stirrings that even now awake at the thought of her. As he has done twice before, he clenches his fists and readies himself to say what he must. The kiss must remain in the past. It is better for them both, for their cause, that it be so. Duty must come first.

This time, he will not fail.

“Athi, I _—_ ”

Even as he forms the words, the sky groans and then shatters. Its long-held waters smack against the stone behind them and roil the tall grasses. Rain, torrential and cold, turns the dirt beneath their feet to mud and runs in rivulets down his body.

And hers.

He curses under his breath, though it might as well be a shout for all she could hear him. He is a weak, foolish man, and each failed attempt to wrench himself away makes him weaker still. And now she is gone, distracted, lost in the downpour as he is lost in her. She is happy, and lets down her hair into a thick curtain. It doesn’t look soft, it looks as tangled and wild as she is, and he wants to feel it. Wants to feel everything.

Then she laughs at something _—_ he seldom knows why without asking _—_ and a rare contentment settles on her features.

Surely it is not too much to admit that she is lovely. Lovely, even like this. Perhaps especially like this. Even without light from moon or stars, or sun, or flame, he knows. He knows the warm green of her eyes, surrounded by dark lashes and the lines of June. He knows the slope of her forehead and the shape of her lips, knows the freckles across her cheeks and nose that disappear when the warm color of her skin deepens in the sun. He knows the contour of her curves and the callouses on her hands.

But it is not her face or her body that moves him. Her spirit is infectious, contagious, a wildfire. A flood. She inspires and destroys. She is reckless and gentle. She is dangerous and good. This is why they follow her.

This is why _he_ follows her.

This is why he loves her.

 _It is not right,_ his inner voice warns.

He takes her by the arm and catches her eye. Hoping, wanting, impatient as ever.

 _It is not right,_ his inner voice cries.

But then he pulls and she is close and it’s very hard to hear that voice with her wrapped around him and held within him. With her wet skin pressed to his own, and dripping hair underneath his chin, and a warm cheek against his chest. Inside, his heart beats hard and fast, chanting a new truth.

_She is real._

_She is real._

_She is real._


End file.
